Bitter
by telegramsam
Summary: He left Rose behind.


Author's note: spoilers for Girl in the Fireplace

Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC, not me.

---

_After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now  
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors  
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,  
Guides us by vanities. Think now  
She gives when our attention is distracted  
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions  
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late  
What's not believed in, or if still believed,  
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon  
Into weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed with  
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think  
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices  
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues  
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.  
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree._  
-excerpt from T. S. Eliot's _Gerontion_

_---_

He actually did it. She couldn't believe her eyes, but he actually did it. He said he wouldn't be able to get back, it was impossible.

He did it anyway.

Rose stared at the broken glass dumbly. There was nothing behind it but wires and bits of space ship.

He did it.

He left her.

The Doctor left her. For what? A French woman he'd spoken to half a dozen times? In the back of her mind, she knew they were in trouble, she and Mickey, but she couldn't form the words.

Mickey did for her.

"What happened? Where did the time window go? How's he gonna get back?"

Part of Rose wanted to scream. Part of her wanted to curl up in a corner and cry. Part of her almost wished she were back home, sitting on the couch with her mother watching _Eastenders_ after a boring day behind a shop till.

She did none of those things, though. It was too unreal. The other part of Rose, the larger part, simply couldn't believe that her Doctor would do this. Do this to her, his Rose. It was some sort of trick, a lie, a nightmare…

Oh she knew he wasn't _in_ love with her. She'd learned that from Sarah Jane. He'd told her as much. He'd told her that he didn't fall in love with humans, their lives were too short and it was too painful. But he did care about her. They were still friends, right? And he did promise her mother that she'd be taken care of, and the Doctor keeps his promises, of course.

So of course he didn't just leave, mounted on a white horse, riding off to save a woman he'd met that morning and inexplicably fallen ass-over-teakettle _in_ love with. That sort of thing the Doctor just didn't do.

She didn't have an answer to Mickey's questions. Oh how desperately she wished she did. She wandered over to the window to look at a sky full of distant stars, little bright points burning unfathomable distances away. Which one was the Sun she knew? Or could she even see it from here?

"We can't fly the TARDIS without him. How's he gonna get back?"

Mickey again, his voice leaking into her head, speaking to her, asking the same tired questions to which she had no reply. She looked up at the stars again, almost expecting them to give her an answer. The last time she'd looked at the stars, they'd held promise of life, of love, of adventure. This time, the universe remained silent and indifferent. Perhaps it had always been so, and the rest she had just imagined.

Rose heard footsteps behind her. Mickey pacing again. It wasn't fair, not for Mickey. His first adventure and it ended with him being dumped on a spaceship for the rest of his natural life. Maybe somebody should have warned him. Maybe she should at least apologize to him - after all he wouldn't be here if she'd never gone with the Doctor in the first place.

She peeled her eyes from the empty universe and turned around. Not Mickey.

"Doctor?"

There he was, pinstripes and trainers and big hair.

"Hello, Rose, miss me?"

The grin didn't quite reach his eyes, but then, neither did hers. She launched herself into his arms, squeezing his neck as though he'd evaporate if she let go.

"How long did you wait?"

"Five and a half hours."

"Great! Always wait five and a half hours."

"Where've you been?"

"Explain later, into the TARDIS, with you in a sec!"

And he was off again. Part of her desperately wanted to lunge after him, grab onto him and never let go again, but instead she stood fixed in her place, watching him he ran back, yelling for his little French madame. Watching him as he sent the fireplace rotating once again back to the history of France and away from her.

She chewed the inside of her cheek while she waited, refusing to cry. He would come back this time too, he had to.

Minutes ticked by and no Doctor. An hour passed, and nothing. Mickey poked his head out of the TARDIS.

"What's the hold-up?"

Rose swallowed against the growing lump in her throat, not bothering to turn around.

"He went back to get her."

Mickey materialized next to her and they waited silently, watching the unmoving fireplace. He tried to take her hand into his but she shoved them in her pockets instead. She should have been holding the Doctor's hand.

The old Mickey would have said something if she'd done that to him, some joke, some display of mock offense. This Mickey remained silent and stayed by her side. If she'd been in the state of mind to notice or care, she might have thought his steadfast silence a bit odd.

More time passed, whether minutes or hours Rose could not be entirely certain of, and Mickey finally put a hand behind her shoulder, ushering her back toward the TARDIS.

"C'mon Rose, there's no point in waiting around out here, and I have to use the loo anyway. He'll turn up eventually. It was over five hours last time, remember?"

"Yea… Sure."

She followed him back into the blue box. Mickey disappeared for a while into the bowels of the ship, returning a short time later, presumably after his trip to the loo. Rose waited by the console, watching the doors.

Hours passed, this time she was certain of it. Eventually, the doors opened and the Doctor stepped in like a ghost. She didn't smile this time, or hug. Neither did he. The joy of their previous reunion had faded away, leaving an uncomfortable gnawing in her belly that demanded an answer.

"Why her?"

_Why is she worth more than me?_

"Why'd they think they could repair the ship with the head of Madame du Pompadour?"

_What's so bloody special about her?_

"We'll probably never know. There's massive damage in their computer databanks. They probably got confused."

Another answer that's no answer at all.

"The TARDIS can close down the time windows now that the droids are gone. Stop it causing any more trouble."

Plenty of trouble to go around already it seems.

"You alright?"

"I'm always alright."

Yea, that shit-eating grin looks so very alright. Part of Rose almost felt sorry for the Doctor, for his clearly broken heart (_hearts_), but her anger and her broken hearts (_heart_) wouldn't let her truly feel it. She wanted to go to him, cling to him with the pretense of consoling him, with the true motive of claiming him, greedily holding him all to herself, but now she knew, she finally understood the utter futility of such a act.

"C'mon Rose, it's time you showed me around the rest of this place."

Mickey again. Always Mickey.

The Doctor stood tinkering at the ship's controls despondently, refusing to look at her or Mickey any longer, retreating to the recesses of his own mind. He was well beyond her reach now, to either console or to claim.

Mickey was waiting for her to respond, to follow him. She'd spent ages looking after him, taking care of him, keeping him out of trouble, before she met the Doctor.

Maybe for once she'd let him return the favor.


End file.
